Probes are well known devices which form an electrical path connecting one or more inputs of a test and measurement instrument to one or more nodes of a device under test. Probes traditionally consist of a conductive tip and an insulating probe body. The instrument operator will typically manually steady the insulating probe body while positioning the conducting probe tip to physically make contact with the surface of a conducting point on the device under test. When contact is made, the probe and channel termination form a connection to the circuit under test, allowing the test instrument to acquire and record signal information. Commonly, many nodes will be tested, and the operator will manually maneuver the probe tip to make contact with each of the desired nodes. In order to ensure that the probe tip has made contact with the proper node, and has not slipped off of the desired node, shorted two nodes together, or attached itself to another undesired node location, it is necessary for the operator to have accurate visual information about the probe tip's location relative to the desired node under test.
Currently, colored LEDs are available within active probes, for the purpose of probe identification. When connecting multiple probes to a device under test, users have historically been challenged when viewing the device under test, to identify which probe tip corresponds to which scope channel. Autocolor identification of probes has been implemented which illuminates a side panel of the probe with a color that matches a waveform trace color on an oscilloscope or other test and measurement apparatus for the corresponding channel. In this way, for example, if a channel 3 waveform trace in the oscilloscope grid appears blue, then the side panel of the probe acquiring the signals that are sent to the oscilloscope through channel 3 is lit with a blue LED. This prior art is useful for indicating the channel identity of the probe, but is not useful for illuminating or viewing the target node of the device under test. Currently, lighting and/or magnification of the target node of the device under test does not exist in probing technology.